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Middlesbrough hoping to deflect interest in Adam Johnson

Middlesbrough will rebuff offers for Adam Johnson, their most promising player, next month in spite of mounting interest from Barclays Premier League clubs in the England Under-21 international.

Johnson’s progress in the Coca Cola Championship this season has been monitored by Sunderland, Chelsea and Everton, with Steve Bruce’s club - who the winger supported as a boy - previously emerging as favourites to sign the left-footer.

While Johnson, 22, falls out of contract next summer, Middlesbrough would be eligible for a tribunal fee for a player they have nurtured through their Academy system and Steve Gibson, the chairman, is determined not to lose a player on whom his club’s faltering ambitions of securing promotion largely rest.

Gibson has proved similarly stubborn during previous January transfer…